A few days ago, Kotaku re-opened an old battle that was thought to be dead by many. I had a feeling this would not be the case, but seeing it blow up once again, let’s revisit one of the oldest argument…. which is better, a keyboard and mouse or a controller? Apparently, this argument is why we only got maybe 3 games that used cross platform gaming.

I’m sure you know where I am going here, but before we start tearing up idiots who seem to think their side has to win this argument once and for all and prove them to be the superior being in the universe or some such thing, let’s get down to the brass tax. There IS no one controller type that is inherently better then all the others in the gaming universe at everything. It doesn’t exist. To try to make that argument is about as stupid as it got trying to argue about if motion controls are good or suck. Once again, it’s all about what you are playing…. and in some cases WHERE you are playing.

But of course, fanbois will never leave this as it is…. and I’m beginning to think someone at Kotaku is either one of these fanbois or loves to see them fight when bored with nothing better to do. As I read this article (admittedly amused by the picture it came with), all I could think of was the the countless times my brother has tried again and again to tell me how much better a controller is then a mouse for FPS games.

Not only does this article suggest MS believes this is 100% wrong, but aside from the smile I get watching fanboi faces contort with rage (in my head, anyway) that the company that runs their blessed box MIGHT NOT AGREE ITS THE BEST CONTROLLER TO PLAY A HALO STYLE GAME WITH, it brings up some rather… interesting views from the audience…

From the general consensus, it seems Xbots want to point to Shadowrun, where PC gamers apparently got their asses handed to them regularly during testing and in the game, followed up by PC fanbois who can’t let it go even though Shadowrun was so bad the guys at my local gamestop made a practice of forcing customers to try the game before they let them buy the disc (no joking here) when it was released. (Hey, if the Xbots need to have a garbage game to feel good about, no skin off my nose.) Instead, they have to beat this theory into the ground explaining how badly PC controls were handicapped to even the playing field.

Now let me get something off my chest right now… shut the **** up. Xbots, your controller works for you… great. Congratulations. Enjoy. But it’s not for everyone anymore then a wiimote is. Play what you like on what you like and just shut the **** up rather then becoming religious zealots who can not stand that HERETICS exist that dare enjoy what you do not. This isn’t a religion, and the popularity of your system is NOT your self value, and thinking so makes you a pathetic human being at best. Grow the **** up. (Special note SDF falls into this group as well)

The same thing goes for you too, PC Snobs. Yes, I know mouse is super accurate and is the only real way to get a head shot without stooping to aim assists that console gamers use without even knowing/realizing it… but you know what? Who cares! They have fun, you have fun. You are all enjoying the same damn game. So shut the **** up about something no one (myself included) cares to hear any more about.

That’s it… seriously… that’s all I have to say. I don’t care how upset the idea the Microsoft thinks the mouse is better made you or how much you wanted to prove those console fanbois wrong. If you can’t handle that, then take the advise in the comments and plug a 360 controller into a PC to see for yourself who is right…. and then shove the results right up your ***. REAL gamers who care about gaming and not the plastic pieces involved. We simply don’t give a sh*t.

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This game will have you playing the part of a nefarious pie thief named P.B. Winterbottom, who lives for pies, stealing them at will in an 19th century city. However, something changed, making him able to warp time, recording “clones” that repeat a point of time indefinitely until he removes them… and you will use this power to collect all the pies in each level, ultimately trying to gather some kind of epic super-pie at the end of the game. There may be more to this pie or the story in general, but I didn’t get far enough to tell you. Not all is bad, however. The story is told between levels slient movie-style, and both the art and the rhyme with which we read it both carry a certain charm to them.

And this silent movie charm will carry through the entire game. The whole game looks like one of these movies between the black and white, the film-marks that will go over the screen, and even the music is piano music as you would expect for this kind of film. This music is perfect, however to this end, there was no real sound to speak of…

But once the charm of the first impressions wear off, we get to the meat of the game… a puzzle game where the objective is to collect all the pies on each screen. To do this, you will be allowed to make clones of yourself, and this is where the game’s disappointment began to creep in.

First, I got through over half the game, and the only levels I played that let me use more then 3 clones at once were challenge levels I didn’t really need to play to finish the game, limiting the mad-cap I was hoping to create quite severely. Now I understand that this game was made to be a challenging puzzle game, but it should be fun before even that, which brings us to our next issue…

Namely that this game’s idea of challenge becomes far less about setup and far more about twitch reflexes. This has a lot to do with the clone limit complaint since later in the game, they force you to not just be smart but be smart their way. In a game that sports creativity, this is a HEAVY blow against it. It also doesn’t help that the control scheme on the keyboard is fairly awkward, making timing that much harder. And that feel is yet another point in it’s own right to knock this game for. The entire time I was playing, all I could think was “this belongs on Newgrounds.” It feels like a flash game. From the control scheme right down to the animation of Winterbottom, this game screams flash in high resolution.

And further pressing this flash impression is the game’s length. I’m rather notorious for taking my time and enjoying what I’m playing when I’m allowed…. and this game, complete with optional missions, took me about an hour and a half to almost get 3/4ths of the way through. For a puzzle game this is ridiculously short, further limiting the game, assuming you enjoy it all the way through.

In the end, I have a hard time recommending this game to anyone, really. It’s short comings are far to many to really say it’s worth buying, even at $5. I bought it during Steam’s summer sale for $2.50… I still feel ripped off by the nefarious pie thief.

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Transformers: War for Cybertron takes place during the war on the planet before anyone left and crash landed on Earth. At this time, the war is at it’s most intense, and you will play through 2 distinct campaigns: one following the conquest of the Decepticons, and a second following the Autobots as they fight back against Megatron and his army. Each campaign is 5 missions long with the Autobots one following the Decepticons to complete the story. While this story is not particularly shocking or surprising, it is solid and carries the style of the original story quite nicely, complete with each mission behaving like an episode you play through to move the story along.

Gameplay, on the other hand, will shock a lot of people. Let’s be honest here… Transformers games for the most part completely and utterly suck. Until now, we have seen exactly ONE score a green score on Metacritic, and that one flew under a lot of radars because it was based on the much pooed by the fans Transformers: Armada. When a new Transformers game is announced, most people expect to see a game they will laugh at everyone who buys it for buying utter garbage. I myself learned to be that synical after the release of the game for the first Transformers movie, so I understand that people would expect this game suck the moment they see the name on there. But they could not be more wrong.

The game plays as a solid shooter before anything else. The robots move nicely and feel perfectly natural, even as you move between your 3 different modes: Run’n'gun, slow and aiming (you move slower, but you get much tighter aiming controls), and transformed into a vehicle. And it’s also insanely smooth to swap between these different styles, and you will many times before you finish a mission. And that doesn’t even count the melee attack which flows with equal smoothness or the powers you get to play with based on which transformer you choose to play as. Simply put the controls and the gameplay feels absolutely awesome.

It also doesn’t hurt this game that these campaigns can be played with 2 friends or random players, making for a really fun co-op experience…. and with a drop-in system as effective as Left4Dead 2 where you don’t know another player joined without paying attention, it’s another feature that is almost perfectly developed and implemented into the game. I will get into why almost later, but suffice it to say, this was a fun addition to an already great game!

The gameplay itself is just about matched in the audio department, to boot! From the transforming sound effect, to the solid sounding gunfire, to even the music, this game fits together ridiculously well and sounds fantastic. But the real audio star is the banter. Returning to his immortal roll of Optimus Prime is none other then Peter Cullen, making most of the Autobot campaign a treat to all fans of the old series instantly. But every level of this game is just loaded with the conversations of your allies, and so full of character that it can’t help but speak for the love the series was shown in making this game. You REALLY want to spend a little time to listen to some of these conversations.

Graphically, this game also just plain looks right. I wouldn’t give it special awards for technical advancement, but it captures the feel of a robotic planet very well, and looks very nice overall. Occasionally the game seems to pause for a moment, but that could well be my machine dealing with the PhysX engine, so I can not be sure you would run into the same issue. It was a small issue however, usually occurring for no more then a second when it did… I just felt like any bug that I could count on, it was worth mentioning in the review.

However, as so often happens, there are some gripes to pick up about this game… and I can sum them all up in one word… port. This game is a port directly from the console version and it is next to impossible to forget that. Right off the bat, you will notice the game does NOT allow you to change your key layout. If you play with a keyboard and mouse, you have exactly one set of keys to play with. It sucks that the system known to be customizable to the player has a version with NO CUSTOMIZABILITY, but thankfully the natural layout seems pretty nice, so you wont have to worry about this too much.

Another problem I found from this is online… you have absolutely zero ingame communication. In today’s gaming world, this is pretty damning, especially in team-based vs play when you have to work together. However, Steam already has a few groups setup for this game, and their chat system can cover for this game like anything built into the PS3′s and 360′s networking software would, so it’s not quite so bad. Still, this doesn’t help the random game option very much, or if you leave your co-op game open to others. Chances are the three of you will be playing silent…. still fun as hell, but if you have a plan, just hope your “friends” have the same plan.

To go with this, the Escalation mode is fun as hell, with or without chat, but it did prove why PC gamers have put up the “Dedicated Servers or we hate you” field. When I tried, basically I found that the game iether goes well for the host, or they rage quit and no one gets to finish. Granted, this is more a mark on some gamers rather then on the game, but it can ruin your experience for the night, so once again, if you can play with friends over steam, I highly recommend it.

In the end, this is definitely a game to pick up. If you are a fan of action games, you will have a lot to love from Transformers, more then enough to warrant the $40 price tag (I still don’t know what it was so low, but Im NOT complaining). If you are a fan of the Transformers, then pick this up. Don’t wait. Get on Steam now and grab this damn game now! Till all are one.

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The story begins after the events around the Vault, when our treasure hunters happen apon a very creepy looking forest… and the zombies waste no time showing up! After helping secure the almost abandoned town, you hear about how Dr. Ned (who is totally NOT Dr. Zed with a sweet fake mustache attached to his mask) has been trying to find a cure for the disease that is killing the people here, and turning them into zombies…. starting your next adventure.

Seeing as this game is actually a DLC expansion to Borderlands, you can expect more of the same, if not with a bit of a different theme. Rather then Mad Max, you are now playing a B-rate horror story, complete with all the cheese you could want. True to the formula of Borderlands, this game’s plot is not that deep and probably not really needed, but it is a great change in pace. There is one real twist, but it’s so obvious that you probably know it before you even get into the game for the first time.

Sound-wise this also matches the main game in quality, if not with a bit of a cheese-b-rate-horror spin. No, zombies don’t constantly say “brains” but they do basically make gurgling and puking noises quite often. The ECHO recorders you will find also add to the joy of cheese quite nicely, parodying all kinds of “spooky” cliches.. as well as taking one massive shot at Scooby Doo, much to my absolute entertainment (god I hate that mutt).

And as usual, the meat of the game comes in with the gameplay, which again, is pretty much more of the same… in this case, perhaps more so. The game will be played in the exact same way with the exact same characters, and be just as fun for it. The only real difference is that you are now fighting zombies for the most part… which means they are tough, slow moving, hurt like hell if they hit you, and headshots are your best friends. I would like to say this game is better with other players, but I didn’t get to play with as many as I did in the main game…. it seems that the expansion just wasn’t as popular as the main game. A real pity…

This game is also a lot shorter then the main game… and by a lot, I mean I think it took me about 5 hours to finish it, and for the first half, I was making a point to do every mission. This isn’t really a stay so much as a visit to creepy-ville done up in Borderland’s flair.

In the end, this is definitely an expansion to get if you loved what you played before. If you were just kinda interested, there isn’t enough here to be worth your money. But if this was a game you can’t wait to get more of, a $10 entrance fee to what amounts to a Borderlands haunted house (complete with the special brand of Borderlands cheese) is indeed a very small price to pay.

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If you read my rants, you already read about how Epic has been fishing for forgiveness from the PC market. It seems they are not alone in wanting to get back in good faith with the PC community. A rescent story on Kotaku seems to point to MS looking to get back into the market, and in fact in the words of a Microsoft statement, state why.

Allow me to quote the article:

“In terms of revenue, Windows is far and away the largest gaming platform in the world, so it’s an incredibly important part of Microsoft’s business. From core games like “Fable III” to casual, social and Facebook titles, more gaming happens on Windows than anywhere else. Windows 7 is a world-class gaming platform, and you can bet Microsoft has a vested interest in using it as a platform for amazing first party content. “Fable III” on Windows as well as Xbox 360 this holiday is a great first step, and we’ll have more news for you later this summer.”

I can already hear the rage of the xbots as they read this. I expect most of them will not believe these are words out of Microsoft. Most likely they will try to spin it so it doesn’t make PC gaming look so good to the company who wrote this. Well, you know what? Shut the **** up right now. I have faith that a company who’s job it is to sell the most software to the most people out there knows more about this then someone browsing NPD right now to try to counter this argument…. simply because they are IN THE BUSINESS OF MAKING SURE THEY KNOW SO THEY CAN SELL MORE THEMSELVES. Besides, as much as I love to piss off hater fanbois who can’t let others have something good without getting in a tizzy, you don’t matter right now.

Rather, it seems to me this brings up a question for the PC community: should we welcome Microsoft and others like them who clearly abandoned us for years back?

Over the past few years, MS has done MANY things to make the PC gamer pretty much certain that they don’t want deal with us anymore… let’s look at the most rescent examples:

1) Alan Wake. Yeah, I hear the Xbots moaning again, but it is true. When this game started development, it was a PC exclusive which MS wanted to drop on us and show what the new Direct X 11 could do. Over time, it became a game for 360 as well, then a game that would hit 360 first, then a 360 exclusive.

Regardless of what you think of the game, this definately shows a priority of which system they care for first…. and to a degree, that also makes business sense. After all, they not only sell the OS, they sell the hardware AND get royalties on every disc sold, be it by them or someone else. In their place, I would fight like hell to make sure 360 stool on top of the console pile, too!

But this doesn’t change the fact that in order to do that (be it because of limited resources for the game as they claim, or a need to give as much of an audience as possible a need to get a 360 as I suspect… that’s right… a high profile exclusive to sell their hardware), they snubbed those users of “the largest gaming platform in the world.”

2) Ensamble Studios goes bye-bye: Let’s face it… MS hasn’t made a lot of PC titles for several years now, but they did make one series that had a legendary pedigree and was always popular. Im talking about Age of Empires, the biggest series Ensamble was famous for. I say was because after they unleashed Halo Wars for the 360, the studio was closed, making Age of Empires 3 their last PC title. Such talent taken away….

3) GamesForWindows: When this was announced, it was seen with both dread and eagerness… MS was going to bring their Xbox services to the PC! Well, two things happened…. the service never fully developed and eventually it went free when MS realized PC gamers were not going to pay them a fee to use features everyone else was already offering for free… and by everyone, I mean anyone with a gaming network. Gamespy’s functions only work in game too, after all.

This half-assed attempt bring what was supposed to be award winning service, PLUS requiring to this day a stand-alone application with NO socialization functionality at all to buy games on it PLUS major bugs patching through their software PLUS install limits built in (even ridiculously high ones that only effect online gameplay and “updates” are generally a big no in PC land) have left many a PC gamer hating the service and the MS name more then ever for making some games demand this service.

And 4) of course, there is the biggest sin here… lack… of… games. The last 3 games MS published on the PC were Gears of War, Halo 2, and Age of Empires 3. It has been years now. If anything screams abandonment, this is it.

And now MS wants back in our good graces…. yeah, I can already hear you PC snobs laughing at the very idea. I can’t say I blame you, but I can’t also say that to basically flip them off is a smart move. Effectively, we have another developer who wants to come back, and while the power-rush of telling them “**** off, you had your chance ***hole” may be intoxicating, where will it get us? I’ll tell you where it won’t get us… it won’t get us any new games.

Rather, let’s be the better gamers. Let’s give them the “show us what you’ve got” message. We do not need to be warm and welcoming if they do not earn it, but we do need to keep an open mind. This is the difference between gamers and fanbois… we don’t hold useless grudges as gamers since we can have more fun focusing on, well gaming…. fanbois do that. So join me gamers… join me in keeping an eye out for what this might mean to us. Or go be a fanboi without reason or sense… the choice is yours and mine.

And from where I stand, the ball’s in your court, Microsoft.

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You start this game as a legendary hero of old, hiding your sword in a magic forest. Why? Well so the next hero can find it, of course! Nevermind that it would make more sense to have it readily available for the next time, and maybe hidden in the castle itself! That isn’t how it was done back in the 8 or even 16 bit era, so that is NOT how we are going to do it now! You better get that into your mind, because this game draws a lot of it’s charm from harking back a much more innocent era of gaming, from the first pixel you see on the screen to the ending epic music.

The rest of the story is the standard fair of hero doing hero things, collecting the objects needed to defeat the ultimate evil, namely a dark bishop out to rule the world, and not really that worth noticing, but the details along the way carry the charm of the title quite nicely, often joking about or outright paying tribute to other series we have known for years. While I would never play this game for it’s main story, I highly recommend talking to everyone you come across in your adventure.

And that adventure will scream one name at you the entire time: Zelda. That about sums up the gameplay as effectively as any description could. You will run around an overworld in a top-down view swinging a sword at enemies as you go, only to find your way to dungeons which each contain a small part of your goal as a reward for completing them. Those dungeons even standardize the rooms the same way with one screen per room!

However, not was not perfect in the old days, and this game will remind you on occasion of just how cheap the games could be back there. Often enough, when that screen switched to another room, I found myself either a split second from an enemy rushing at me full speed, or they simply appeared on top of me, taking away that precious first hit before you could do anything about it. And when that was one specific enemy who’s hit literally cuts you down to half an apple (they couldn’t use hearts) and NO MAGIC, it will piss you off like the old days too. Thankfully though, often enough is not often enough to ruin the game… just to piss you off till you get past one very specific dungeon.

Of course the game does have a few of it’s own tweaks as well, including the ability to change swords and even take the swords you have to a blacksmith to upgrade their powers and size. In this game, size matter… mostly for better, but unless you bought the right other upgrades, sometimes for worse as well. These upgrades only take effect while you are at full health, so this doesn’t remove all elements of old school gaming skills, but it can sure make them easier while it lasts.

In addition to the main game, you will also have some minigames in town you can choose to play if you want to. As expected, these games are tributes to the simple and casual styled games we all know…. 3D Dot Game Hero style. Among the games I found were a racing game where you dash around a race track as fast as possible, and a breakout clone where your shield is the paddle. I didn’t spend a lot of time with these, but if you need a break from the main game, they are a fun couple of minutes before you go back and make this game perhaps a little more suitable for a marathon.

Graphically, this game will occasionally slow down your PS3… which at first glance would seem unacceptable for the CPU powerhouse the machine is, but think before you judge this one. Each character is made of blocks, much like your hero is, and it’s reasonable to suspect that in the same manner as the editor lets you create a hero of your own, they were edited one block at a time. This would mean behind this quaint and designed to look a little old and archaic image, EACH PIECE OF THE SPTIRES IS MEING HANDLED BY THE CPU. Add a few effects to that and any machine would be huffing along! The results though, are simply as charming as the rest of the game… 3D renderings of what would be 2D sprites from the 8-bit era of gaming. There are a few glaring exceptions to this, which ruin the effect while they are on the screen, but thankfully I could count them on one hand.

The music, of course, carries the solid charm of the game forward as well, keeping to the kind of music you would expect to hear back on your SNES… in fact it sounds like From Software did their best to get their inspiration from the original Legend of Zelda. It paid off, big time. In fact, as a side story, the end dungeon music was inspiring sadistic revenge from my brother who just happened to walk in to talk to me as I walked in the giant door to it. When you can have that kind of effect on someone without them even playing the game, JOB WELL DONE.

Overall, if you are looking for that old-style gameplay, this game is an almost perfect fit for you. It is old-school gaming done right, done fun, and for the most part, perfected. If you are looking for something different from the average FPS/3rd person shooter you could do infinately worse then this one. But if you never liked the Legend of Zelda, walk away. This game is not for you.

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With E3 on the horizon, it is a time of great excitement for all of us in the gamer community. We are all looking forward to what the big companies will show off at the year’s biggest gaming show, and with good reason. But sadly, this is also the time another animal stirs within our numbers. The fanatics who worship upon the altars of the big three…. bearing their marks with a religious pride, and many who look at this event like a pilgrimage they wish they could travel. Fanbois.

Now, I’m going to shock everyone, but I have no issue with ALL fanbois. After all, if you enjoy something that much, who am I to get in the way of that? However, there is a special breed of them that simply needs to grow up or die… the hater fanboi. This is the kind of person that, like a religious zealot, can not accept that others can not possibly like what they like best, or maybe even enjoy something they do not. It’s their duty to not only show others the light (as any fanboi would… I mean who DOESN’T want to share the joy of their favorites…. even if it’s blindly followed?) but to do so by force when simply revealing it isn’t enough. They try to be bullies of the gaming world…. yeah, I know… laugh… Hell I do…. but that is what they attempt. To beat their opinion into other people’s brains.

Anyone who calls themselves “hardcore” gamers, listen up. This part is specifically for you. You guys have these haters among you for the most part. Think about it. How many “casual” gamers look down on other gamers because their games are too graphically intense or too bloody or even too complicated. Sure, some look down on the games themselves (as too complicated FOR THEM), but they generally let the gamers go play what they want WITHOUT ARGUMENT. If you can’t do this, take a note. This is the mature way to be. After all, you are arguing about GAMES! About a piece of software that was bought to ENTERTAIN YOU. I do not care if you think it’s something you could have crapped into the toilet, scooped out, and formed into a disc to shove into the system/computer of your choice and neither does the actual gamer you are trying to convince to play a “real game.”

That’s right. They are playing games. They are ENJOYING games. They ARE gamers. You are not playing games. You are trying to STOP SOMEONE FROM ENJOYING GAMES. You are an ANTI-GAMER. Do you wan’t to be an anti-gamer? No? Then shut the **** up, let them play what they enjoy, and MAYBE on occasion offer them the chance to try what you like. Might broaden their horizons, just as it might yours to get off your pre-pubescent “if it’s rated E it must suck” malignantly stagnant ass and try one.

And while we are here, this, sadly, is the new tone of the “console wars.” We may laugh at it here, but go to many gaming sites with a forum, and you will see multiple threads DEDICATED to the “fight” between idiots over which system is the best, and which system sucks so bad it could die in a fire along with anyone stupid enough to play it. Guys, you were funny once, but that was when the systems launched and your stupid was new enough again to be funny… and several years ago. Now it’s just stupid. Shut up and grow up.

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Left 4 Dead 2 is a First Person Shooter that will have you and up to three other friends playing the roll of a new set of survivors in the apocalyptic nightmare, where teamwork really is all that matters. Yes, you can play this single player and have the computer help you, but if you are doing that, you are kind of missing the point of this one. Just like the first game, you are supposed to go online and either play with friends, or at the very least open the game so others can join. They will, and you will all have a blast. You’re goal will be to travel through the landscapes between safe-houses and ultimately survive an end challenge and escape or be rescued… that’s right, this time others coming to get you is not the only way you can make it. Sometimes, you need to fuel a vehicle up so you can drive off yourself!

But this minor change is far from the only upgrade. The biggest and most immediate change is a connected story. Every “movie” happens in order, including the new addition, “The Passing” (which comes free with Left 4 Dead 2 on the PC). There is a complete story here told, which is a new thing instead of the individual and fairly unrelated episodes that populated the gameplay of Left 4 Dead. The story isn’t all that deep, but you get to know the characters a lot more this time.

Nor are the survivors the only characters with a change. We now have new zombies. In addition to the old tanks, smokers, boomers, witches, and hunters, we now have spitters (spits acid which stays for a while), jockeys (jumps on a survivor’s back and takes partial control over where they go, hurting them as they go), chargers (ramming SPEED!), and a whole new class called Uncommon Infected. This new class varies depending on the movie you are in, and have a special ability unique to them. For example, the Dark Carnival has clowns, which due to the bells they wear, attract the horde around them. These zombies make the game that much more interesting to play, as well as MUCH more fun to be the zombies in vs mode!

Control-wise, I don’t want to go too deep into it. As I’ve said many times, FPS controls in most PC games are pretty much perfected, and this game is no exception. The default layout puts all the controls easily in your reach, including the chat button so you can use your mic to reach out to your team without even slowing down to type. The ONLY improvement I could think of would be a button free chat, but that’s why Borderlands got special notice on this.

Graphically, this game has moved up, but not a lot. The Source Engine, is once again what the game runs on, and while it looks nice, the engine is starting to show it’s age. Not that this should be a huge marker against it… I mean this engine is over 5 years old and it still looks nice enough that unless you are fanatical about the hottest graphics, you have no reason to complain. Although this is the kind of game that it’s probably for the best anyway…. when the zombies come racing in with the full background effects used (Hard Rain is one of the coolest looking storm-sets I have ever seen in a game), it still runs at liquid smooth!

And of course sound-wise this game is fantastic. The music is perfect and placed exactly right to drum up the tension, and considering this game has NOTHING SCRIPTED, that is beyond an achievement. The zombies themselves make sounds that all sound like grunts, yet different enough to know what kind is making the noised BASED on the noise. A very nice balance, especially with the set of possible zombies you will face now.

When it comes to gameplay, this game screams exactly two words… team and work. Weather you are playing the survivor or zombie (and yes, you can play them in vs like the old game), you have to work together if you want to win. A lone wolf zombie rarely is effective, if at all since a good group of survivors will play like a team, and a lone survivor will die…. period. To drive the point home, the Director has been upgraded since the last game, and now even computer zombies can and will work together. To put it bluntly, this game is amazing, but if you are not a team player, all you will do is piss off yourself, piss off your teammates, and probably get booted from the game. This also means most Halo-style players have already passed this game off, so your odds of finding “that guy” are slim to none.

Overall, as long as people want to hunt zombies, this game should have a home on your hard drive. It’s fun. It’s fast, it’s paced by a sadistic computer program who wants to eat your brains, and Valve uses a mutation mode to give some new spin every weak, keeping the game far more fresh then most FPSs stay. Get it, play it, love it. Just don’t wander off on your own.

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Over a week ago, Kotaku Reported comments from Epic’s President about why they left PC gaming. There is no shock in hearing from them that they thought that’s where the money is… hell there is no shock that they blamed the almighty excuse of millions, Piracy. But is it fair, and why speak up now? And for that matter, why tell us “they still love PC” in the same breath? Personally, I’m calling complete and utter bull**** on their part.

Before we go on, let’s explain what went wrong for Epic on the PC by going over the two games they released on it over the past five or so years.

Gears of War was a smash hit… but a smash hit on 360 only… and why? The game only hit PC a year later when EVERYONE had moved on, rendering sales useless. (Writer’s note: PC games NEVER stop selling, but that is due to Digital Distribution, which to the best of my knowledge, Gears of War is not available through… well you can get it as a download through Gamestop, but come on… you HAVE to be on Steam, Impulse, D2D, or at the VERY ABSOLUTE MINIMUM, GamesForWindows on Demand to benefit from that.) To make anything on the PC, they did it COMPLETELY wrong.

Now we get to the REAL bomb…. Unreal Tornament 3. Wow… look, Epic… I have a small secret for you. When an installment to a PC game series is literally some tweaks and a graphic update it tends to NOT SELL ON PC. To get my point, watch the Gametrailers review of the game: “On the PC, it’s basically status quo.” There is a reason EA does not even try to market their sports titles on PC. Unreal Tournament reached this status around 2004. This is the ONE time when it’s not just your marketing, but the idea entirely that explains why you made nothing on it. (And this is before we reach the point that day one the game was broken and missing half it’s menus to control game matches…)

So seeing how about half their games actually had a chance on PC, I can understand why they think there is no money on PC. I can’t agree since I can see clearly where they screwed up (or MS screwed them… Gears of War is not under their control since they are not the publisher), but I understand.

What I can’t understand is why they think these mistakes are the faults of Pirates? I mean seriously, Epic… is that just your instinctive excuse? Can you not accept you ****ed up? And then, after you called everyone who dared either have too short an attention span to care about a game a year later in Gamestop when most PC gamers don’t bother with Gamestop anymore anyway, or understood you were giving them nothing new for their money common theives, you love them?

Sorry, I don’t buy it. I think you are praying we will go “awwww…. it’s ok” and buy BulletStorm. Let’s see it before we buy it…. if you can work the old magic and not just rehash it, maybe we will forgive you. But there is nothing you need to give us forgiveness for. We have done nothing wrong, good Sir.

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Lately from out here in PC-gamer land, this has been a rather hot-button issue on the forums, even if it doesn’t show in sales. It seems like everyone who has access to a keyboard and the internet is getting pissed at publishers who dare include something to protect their software from pirates on the disc with the game… iether that or they are a console fanboi who is crowing how all these pissed of gamers mean the death of their hated PC competition.

This…. all of this… is absolute and utter bullshit. As I meantioned in my last article, PC gaming is not dying, so xbots, shut the fuck up and sit down. You are loud. You are annoying. And you. Are. WRONG. Want to know why? Read my last rant. Now, don’t go away completely on me since this also effects you, but for now, stop raving against things that are not your beloved box and shut up.

Now for you angry PC gamers. Shut up. You are not being abandoned. Well, ok Rockstar might as well be for what they think passes for quality PC coding these days, but aside from them, no… it’s not happening. In fact, DRM is almost as old as PC gaming itself, and for the most part better now then it used to be. After all, when was the last time you had to enter a CD-key to play your game… not just install it, but every time you wanted to start the game up? And when was the last time you had to use on screen information to pick between dozens, if not hundreds of CD-keys from the manual? Believe it or not, we old-timers used to have to do just that.

But what about modern DRM schemes? Or the evil SecuROM? For the most part, I do not believe they are so bad, and certainly better then what we once had. The only thing bad is if a company decides to use them wrong. Want to know what I mean?

Let’s look at “EVIL” SecuROM. This program has been around for a long long time… ever play Area 51? The Suffering? Guess what checked your CD before it let you play? That’s right, our old friend. But now, something has clearly changed. SecuROM is no longer just checking your game’s disc on startup, but logging online to check with an online database if you have a legitimate copy! How DARE THEY!

Well, once again, shut up. The old way doesn’t work anymore… because we are quickly racing to a disc-less gaming age on our favorite machine. No discs means nothing to check, so in the name of some kind of security, someone had to step up to the plate. And if you try to tell me “DRM treats us all like criminals” and “it’s about our rights,” don’t even try. I will reach through the screen and backhand you myself you whiney worthless piece of shit.

Look around you… how mature is the average gamer? Im willing to bet almost all of us are not pirates, but we are also a crowd who include not only a small portion of brats who scream “gimmie! It’s my right” and pirate away (who I will backhand above), but a large portion who if we were honest with ourselves, would not be able to say “Im not tempted” if offered our games for free. Now, Im not saying we would do it, but is it not a smart idea to avoid putting the temptation out there? The developers are doing just that… much like the lock&key your local retail store puts games behind.

And that is not to say I back everything done in the name of DRM, just that the fervor against it is over-blown and frankly kinda stupid. When EA universally told us we had limited how many machines we could install to at all (and that is NOT SecuROM’s fault… it’s how EA was using it) for all their new games, I was as pissed as the rest of you. This use was a direct limit to how often we could use our games just due to one of the big benefits of PC gaming… you can use YOUR OLD GAMES years later on your BRAND NEW RIG as well as your new games!

Which brings to my absolute point… DRM is not going away so stamping your feet and acting like four year olds throwing a fit in the local mall is not going to do anything but prove to me and anyone else who reads you to laugh at the idiocy before them. What you CAN do, is take a rational look at how the game handles it, decide if you feel it’s alright and be smart about what you do with that decision.

1) Do NOT PIRATE the game. You do NOT make a statement of protest doing this. All you do is show the publisher that someone got past their security, therefore the security failed… NOT the policy behind it that you are actually protesting (at least telling yourself you are protesting, but hey… whatever lets you sleep at night). All you are going to do is encourage them to build a stronger glass case (more intense DRM).

2) Do NOT rant and rave like an idiot on the forums. Even if you are educated about what you are talking about, you will not look like it. What you will look like is a complete retard like the kind who so completely fill the interwebz.

3) DO choose not to buy the game unless properly compensated. In my case, this means if I decide the DRM is the turn-off, I want half-off the price or the situation corrected. And stick by your guns. The publisher will not learn if they get your money anyway. Yes this means self control and the POSSIBILITY of missing a few titles. Don’t like it, go whine to someone who cares. This is how you get your message across, assuming it’s what you really want.

4) DO write to customer support of the publisher in question. Be polite, but absolute. They need to know WHY their games are not selling in order to correct it, so tell them! I suspect this was a big part of why EA changed their policy… not idiots on a forum screaming their heads off.

That’s it… that’s my message…. oh, and console users, take notice…. PSN has already felt the sting of the newest breed of DRM (Final Fight needed a constant live connection Ubisoft PC gaming style) to run…. so if this isn’t your fight yet, it will be soon.

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